Angry White Kid

A Discourse of Divisiveness: Al Giordano and Mexico’s Social Movements

The Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity participates in a ceremony
at Monte Albán in Oaxaca. (Photo from SDPNoticias / Lucía Vergara)

A Discourse of Divisiveness: Al Giordano and Mexico’s Social Movements

By Scott Campbell

On September 28, Al Giordano, founder and publisher of NarcoNews.com, published a lengthy article on the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity and its time in Oaxaca. Taking the political landscape of Oaxaca as a jumping off point, the main gist of Giordano’s piece was in pointing out the distinctions between the activities and rhetoric of the left and those of Javier Sicilia and the caravan. In the dichotomy he creates, Giordano comes down firmly on the side of Sicilia – one needs to read no further than the sub-headline where he distinguishes between the “annihilating language of the left” and the “language of humanity of drug war victims” to grasp the argument he is putting forward.

In Giordano’s view, “the left” is stuck in a no-longer relevant posture of confrontational and militant rhetoric and action which does not resonate with the everyday individual surviving in a country wrecked by neoliberalism and the violence of the state and drug cartels. He posits that Sicilia’s movement of Gandhian nonviolence with its post-partisan focus on common humanity – from the victims of the drug war all the way up to Felipe Calderón – creates a bond based not on ideology but shared loss, pain and grief, a bond which does resonate with the Mexican populous, and is something much more preferable to what the left has to offer.

A scorched earth attack on the left

Now, when you set up a contrast like that – between a side with humanity and a side that is annihilating – it makes tearing down one and raising up the other rather simple. In doesn’t hurt to throw in some unsubstantiated take downs, such as that those annihilators “gladly will jump on the caravan buses and accept free food from many of the poorest indigenous communities in the nation…but who seemed to be doing so with a grimace on their faces.” Or to imply that they are so out of touch they care more about politics than their own dead family members, as he does with Omar Esparza, whose wife Bety Cariño was assassinated by paramilitaries in 2010. At a caravan stop in Huajuapan, Giordano states Esparza, “said nothing about his late wife…choosing instead of offer a boilerplate political speech of the sort that gets made at so many other political meetings and protests.” He also inaccurately labels Esparza as a spokesperson for the anarchist-leaning group Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy and Freedom (VOCAL) when in fact he is a member of the Zapatista Indigenous Agrarian Movement (MAIZ). This error takes on more significance when Giordano notes that after speaking, Esparza invited someone from the Stalinist Popular Revolutionary Front (FPR) to speak and implied that the invitation involved “some kind of organizational log-rolling or concessions” on the part of the annihilating left, as VOCAL and the FPR do not get along, to put it mildly. However, since MAIZ and the FPR do frequently work together, the invitation is no surprise at all. When you create your own straw man, it’s easy to knock him down. Problem is, in the end it still is just a straw man of your own creation.

24 arrested at land occupation in Oaxaca

UPDATE: 5:57pm - All 24 of the comrades detained this morning have been released. Thank you for your support and solidarity.

UPDATE: 4:34pm - Seven of the 24 detained have now been released, including the five compañeras from the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala. Seventeen remain held without charge. Four of them: David Venegas Reyes, Natalia Venegas Reyes, Daniel Arellano and Abril Ortega are being told by the police that they will not be released because there are supposedly arrest warrants out for them.

UPDATE: 2:43pm - Here is the most recent statement on today's repression. As well, comrades who weren't detained this morning are now blockading the road in front of the municipal police headquarters in Oaxaca, where those detained are being held:

Today October 2 police intimidate and repress comrades building spaces for the people  

To the peoples of Oaxaca
To women and men standing in solidarity in Mexico and the world
To the news media
To human rights organizations

Today on the 2 of October, as we had previously stated, we took over the foundry lot. This brought on the kind of repression commonly used by corrupt, repressive governments to intimidate, threaten, beat and jail people who are peacefully mobilizing. In this case people from the neighborhoods and other free people were generating organizing spaces for the people of Oaxaca in order to be able to come together in places formerly used by those in power seeking to enrich themselves with what now belongs and has always belonged to the people.

Around 8 o’clock this morning, we were there in the space just taken over by different collectives, organizations, and indigenous peoples, such as the Mixes, members of the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, and people of VOCAL, Hormiga Libertaria, CASOTA and the APPO. While we were organizing different activities for the space, doing radio broadcasts about what was happening and letting people know what this Okupation is about, three men in street clothes who looked like bodyguards came up to us and told us we’d better get out of there in less than an hour or they were going to call the hired thugs from the UABJO High School # 1. We asked them to explain these threats, but at about 8:30 am three pick-up trucks full of Municipal Police officers pulled up and began to harass and threaten those of us who were occupying the lot. According to them the bodyguards work for Manuel Maza Sanchez.

More Municipal Police agents began to arrive, but these were wearing ski-masks and carrying long arms and pushing everybody around who got in their way. Even though we are sure that the lot does not belong to Mr. Manuel Maza Sanchez, we decided to to try to dialogue about the matter outside. Meanwhile, more Municipal Police reinforcements came up, as well as another white truck carrying police agents wearing ski-masks. The truck bore no insignia, so we had no way of knowing which police force it was from, but the license plate number was RV50197.

At approximately 9:30 am the physical attacks against us began. The only things our comrades had with them were a video camera and a digital camera, and these were taken from them at the time of their arrest.

More than 24 men and women were violently arrested and some were beaten by several Municipal Police agents. They were then loaded onto trucks and taken to the offices of the Municipal Police Department. This much we know, because a few comrades were able to let us know what was happening. But as of now, they haven’t been presented by any police agency. They are being held incommunicado and not even allowed to speak to their lawyers to verify their physical and psychological state.  

We hold Mr. Manuel Maza Sanchez, the state government of Gabino Cué Monteagudo and the municipal government of Luis Ugartechea responsible for the physical well-being of our comrades.  

We urgently call on all honorable people in Oaxaca to show your solidarity by going to the Municipal Police Department to demand the presentation and liberation of our comrades. We also ask you to stay alert for further news and to be ready to engage in solidarity actions.

Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy and Freedom (VOCAL)

Oaxaca de Magón, October 2, 2011

-------------

UPDATE: 1:18pm

An updated statement has been released with more details of what happened this morning. But the basic situation remains the same. As soon as translations are available, I'll post it here.

------------

UPDATE: 11:07 am

At 9:24 am, 24 comrades were arrested and are now being held incommunicado in the Oaxaca City holding tank. Please spread the word and show your solidarity.

Please write to these autorities to demand justice and the immediate release of the people arrested:

Lic. Gabino Cué Monteagudo, Gobernador Constitucional del Estado de Oaxaca gobernador@oaxaca.gob.mx

Luis Ugartechea, Presidente Municipal de la Ciudad de Oaxaca
luis.ugartechea@municipiodeoaxaca.gob.mx

-------------

Communiqué from VOCAL on intimidations and arrests today, October 2.

Today, October 2, police intimidate comrades building spaces for the people 

To the peoples of Oaxaca
To women and men standing in solidarity in Mexico and the world
To the news media
To human rights groups 

Today, October 2, 2011, we took over the space by the foundry two blocks down the hill from the wall as a form of peaceful mobilization and, above all, a way of generating organizing spaces for the people of Oaxaca. Here, people from the neighborhoods and other free people will be able to come together in spaces formerly used by those in power seeking to enrich themselves with what now belongs and has always belonged to the people. 

The collective takeover and construction of this space is part of an effort to create spaces for gatherings and processes of creation, autonomy and freedom. From here, we will continue the struggle that peoples have always waged for the defense of the land, first against the invaders and then against powerful people who now hold positions of political and economic power.  

The legitimate right to defend our territory and recover spaces that have lain idle as a result of capitalist greed is what moves us to collectively maintain this project in conjunction with other peoples’ organizations, collectives, and individuals who agree on the need to organize ourselves. Reason is on our side; the governments and the interests it defends can only keep us from pursuing this project through the use of force and violence.